Meditation is not a good way for practising

[Marblehead]

I agree. Meditation is a waste of time, I mean there is a lot better thing to do with your time. You should learn to meditate and move around at the same time, so your not wasting your time sitting around. So many people use meditation as an excuse to be lazy.

 

I didn't like this post the first time I read it. I liked it the second time I read it. There is a big difference between both meditation and wu wei, and being lazy. And I would agree that if your style of meditation isn't really helping you then if you continue that same style you are just being lazy.

[Marblehead]

Then please explain the advantage of intention and spirit.

 

Hehehe. You don't want much, do you?

[Jetsun]

My understanding is that meditation is a method to show you that there is absolutely nothing you can do to meditate, there is nothing you can do to let go except set up the circumstances where there is more possibility of it coming to you either by accident or through grace depending on your perspective. So in that sense it is a waste of time, you would be better off just renouncing all life right now and letting go completely right now rather than spending years fruitlessly trying to make it happen when the act of trying is one of the barriers, but unless you are a Saint that isn't possible so most of us need to fumble around with methods like drunken idiots for a while.

[Mokona]

I agree. Meditation is a waste of time, I mean there is a lot better thing to do with your time. You should learn to meditate and move around at the same time, so your not wasting your time sitting around. So many people use meditation as an excuse to be lazy.

Obviously, that is the next stage up from sitting meditation, it is a progression. The dynamics of learning meditation while moving are much more difficult, it is experience and knowing other meditators that I say this. Do you live in a community of overly-lazy people?

 

You've actually met someone or more than one person who meditates as an excuse to be lazy? I think it's funny, becuase meditation is very hard work too, my most recent meditation session had an image, a smell, a thought, nearly all at once a second or ever few seconds. Of course, I have just as many thoughts when practicing Tai Chi and Qigong, and when I go to the gym to lift - It is a personal belief of mine that as a westerner, a quiet mind is a foriegn Fkn thing.

[Friend]

You've actually met someone or more than one person who meditates as an excuse to be lazy?

 

Quote from Shit New Age Girls say :"I am not sleeping, I just meditate."

[Protector]

Take any normal modern person and put him out of his normal environment into an empty room. Boredom instantly takes over and he looks for something to do. So many of them kids these days like to fiddle with their fancy phones and always listening to music. Doing nothing is a torture to them.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Sinfest

[konchog uma]

I agree. Meditation is a waste of time, I mean there is a lot better thing to do with your time. You should learn to meditate and move around at the same time, so your not wasting your time sitting around. So many people use meditation as an excuse to be lazy.

 

I would guess you've never actually meditated for any length of time. It helps to be educated before you condemn something as a waste. Because, if you knew what meditation was good for, you wouldn't think that. Stillness balances and heals, and gives the mind time to rest and the spirit space to rise. Thats the tip of an iceberg, but i'll stop there.

 

hahaha reading that post was a waste of time... i could have been meditating! j/k

[Friend]

 

hahaha reading that post was a waste of time... i could have been meditating! j/k

 

Not so loud.... you are meditating while reading the post ! And man read faster

you can take your time while meditating. Time is meditation.

[konchog uma]

Not so loud.... you are meditating while reading the post ! And man read faster

you can take your time while meditating. Time is meditation.

 

time is meditation.. i love it! haahah indeed

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

time is meditation.. i love it! haahah indeed

 

 

I second that! nicely put

 

 

 

This has been refreshing...

[Protector]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpcCoQr6gxw&feature=related

[dawei]

Hehehe. You don't want much, do you?

At least you understood...

[Dreamingawake]

speaking of lazy I haven't kept up with this thread for the last week or so and can't remember where I left off (lots of pages).

Did Lao ever actually say what his method was? All I found was 'read the ancient sages and believe what they wrote.'

 

I could be wrong but I'm not entirely sure how just believing something I read in a really old book is gonna do anything for me.

Perhaps I misunderstood and there's more to it?

[Tom Lin]

Sometimes i do feel like meditation may be a hindrance to spirituality. I see it sometimes as sort of a structural way to remain calm (scheduling meditation, focusing on certain things) and i feel like your kind of forcing yourself to be a certain way during that period of time.

 

Its almost like your body may rely on that meditation to stay calm and when you find yourself in a situation where say anxiety takes over and you cannot meditate on anything, then your in a sense screwed.

 

All in all there are meditations that are made for manipulating the body....but is that actually helping going to help you become more spiritual in the long run?

 

 

 

Or maybe life is like a meditation in which we are always aware of our thoughts and senses at every given moment. So meditating for a certain amount of time may actually be a hindrance because you may get used to meditating during that time you "practice meditation" and not being aware of every other moment in your life.

[Marblehead]

 

Did Lao ever actually say what his method was? All I found was 'read the ancient sages and believe what they wrote.'

 

I could be wrong but I'm not entirely sure how just believing something I read in a really old book is gonna do anything for me.

Perhaps I misunderstood and there's more to it?

 

To the best of my understanding, no, Lao Tzu never spoke of any method for meditating (attaining the state of wu wei). Chuang Tzu did though.

 

In my understanding, any one particular method is not stressed though. The important thing is that we find "a" method that works for "us".

 

Some people preach "their" method because it has worked for "them". That's fine as long as they understand that their method might not work for anyone else.

 

I think that this is in the same category with our "path". No one single path is good for everyone because we all are different.

[idiot_stimpy]

Is it because each psych is wired differently with many different connections that trigger other connections to infinity.

[Marblehead]

Is it because each psych is wired differently with many different connections that trigger other connections to infinity.

I think that this would be the first thing to be considered, yes. But then, there are our individual environments, our individual experiences, the "other people" in our life who have effected us, and on and on.

 

I have said before and I will say again here, "We all are special and unique." Therefore I think it could be fairly said that our path (or here, our method of meditation) will be special and unique.

 

This is not to say that there will not be similarities. There will be. A particular meditation method might well be the 'best' method for 100,000 people. But yet it might be the worse method for others.

 

Take me, for example. (Yes, I know, you really don't want me. Hehehe.) I wouldn't expect anyone else to be able to practice meditation the way I do. But I can, if asked, explain my method, and then, if someone might want to try it, that would be their choice. I would never suggest either success or failure.

 

And I will add here that because of this thinking of mine I find it very hard to criticize religions even though I am very anti-religion (I am an Atheist). I know that religion has helped many people. What right do I have to deny someone the help that would allow their life to be more enjoyable? None!

[Dreamingawake]

Thanks a bunch Marblehead. I was just curious and thought I'd missed it somewhere.

excellent post btw

[joeblast]

your brain builds neural networks based upon habit and experience. proceed accordingly

[retrochronyx]

I am new here and quite ignorant, so I may be totally wrong here, but back in the early posts on this discussion, someone said:

 

"To define means to limit, to encapsulate something within a boundary of some sort, to capture the essence and meaning of something in a phrase, concept, or idea."

 

IMO: If "To Define" is as you say (And I do agree with your definition of define), then let's give the term a different name. For instance "A doorway", as in "Zen and Meditation are Doorways" into a bigger world. But, in this analogy, the doorway does require definition, otherwise, how is one to successfully find and enter that doorway and find the bigger world?

[thelerner]

If the calmness and spaciousness that meditation has doesn't enter into your 'everyday' life, then he's right. What good is it? But if it does then you're on to something.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

meditation is great practice, else it wouldn't be premeditated murder...

[Eskrimador]

You play MA you get hurt. Meditate then it dont hurt so bad and ur faster.

[deci belle]

Meditation always has been and will always continue to be a temporary expedient.

 

As thelerner reiterated, if the reality that one's approach to meditation states engenders isn't being carried over into one's everyday ordinary situations, cultivated mindfully as such and recognized as unbroken continuity of abiding states—that's bullshit practice; life's short, don't waste time.

 

Just observe mind without following thoughts twenty-four hours a day; no need to set aside a regular time-period to "escape" conditioned reality— unless that's what meditation is for you. That's called therapy which only serves to strengthen the ego-mentality which is what should be seen through, not denied.

[retrochronyx]

How does one observe one's mind without following thoughts?

 

Thanks,-

Retro